he Evolution of Immortality. 

C T. Stoefeml 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE 



Evolution of Immortality 



or 



Suggestions of an Individual Immortality 
Based upon Our Organic and 
Life History 



By C. T. STOCKWELL 



{ JAN 13 1888 cAf 



CHICAGO 
CHARLES H. KERR & COMPMY 
1887 



Copyright, 1887 
Charles H. Kkrr & Company 



The Library 

of Congress 



WASHINGTON 



PREFACE 



When, in the early part of 18S6, this little 
piece of work was undertaken, and when, in fact, 
the main portion of it was completed, no purpose, 
or even thought, entered the mind of the writer 
that it would ever see the light in its present 
form. It was undertaken simply as a matter of 
personal study and in order to while away odd 
moments of a busy professional life. Having, 
however, read it on several public occasions, a de- 
mand arose for its publication in a manner that 
seemed to overbalance whatever of personal rea- 
sons existed in opposition. 

Being fully aware that an individual immortality 
lies outside of the realm of demonstration; that it is 
a consciousness, a possession, an apprehension if 
anything, the aim of the writer, as embodied in 
this little book, was to make it merely suggestive. 
Should his work, therefore, prove helpful in this 
direction to any who may read, it will have suffi- 
ciently accounted for itself. 

There are two or three questions not touched 
upon in the body of the volume that will, quite 
likely, arise in the minds of some who give this 
line of reasoning careful thought, which I desire 
to mention here: 

l. If, as is claimed, self -consciousness is s fir it 
birth, and the individual, from the point of attain- 
ing self-consciousness, is an immortal being, the 



4 



Preface 



question will very naturally arise regarding the 
destiny of spiritual embryos, or infants. In other 
words: Must the continuity of development re- 
main unbroken until the state of self-consciousness 
is reached before it may be said that an immor- 
tality is possible? In the case of infants, self- 
consciousness and self-determining powers have 
not emerged above the potential state. But as 
physical life is potential in the embryo, so self- 
consciousness is potential in the unconscious infant. 
And right here is found a suggestion of an an- 
swer to the question. If the embryo is capable of 
physical life before actual birth, may we not be- 
lieve that the infant, even before self-consciousness 
becomes an actual fact, has potential viable spirit? 
If the normal period of physical gestation may 
be considerably shortened, and still the potential 
life of the embryo may be realized, why should 
we not suppose that a like law relates to the 
spiritual life? 

2. It will also be noted that, assuming self- 
consciousness to be spirit birth, other forms of life 
below man do not possess viable spirit and, conse- 
quently, do not have the quality or property of im- 
mortality common to man. Professor Le Conte, 
of the University of California, has written on 
this and similar points very strongly and convinc- 
ingly, under the head of " Relation of Man to 
Nature," to which reference may be had to the 
advantage of such as are interested enough to 
pursue the matter further. 



P?'eface 



5 



3. If it should seem to some that the element 
of a personal will has been overlooked in the con- 
clusions arrived at, this must result, as it appears to 
me, in consequence of a failure, on the part of such, 
to apprehend the full meaning of the term used 
so often, viz.: environme7it. By this term, in its 
largest sense, is meant the infinity of spiritual 
forces that press down upon and around every 
human being with the constancy of gravitation 
itself. In fact, from the standpoint of science to- 
day, all forces are spiritual forces, and the identity 
of Law with God seems clear. 

The whole realm of morals lies between the 
inheritance of imperfection, on the one hand, and 
the perfection of the spiritual nature and being, on 
the other. As God — of whom we are taught, by 
Gospel and by Law, to say, "Our Father" — is 
superior to any supposed devil ; as good is more 
enduring than evil — an imperfect good; — in short, 
as infinite spiritual forces are stronger than the 
imperfections that come down to us by inheritance, 
so may our faith be as regards the ultimate destiny 
of that upon which these forces operate. We are, 
indeed, self-determining beings; we are free to 
run counter to law; not, however, to the injury of 
the law, for it mercifully and continually repays 
tithe by tithe and will claim the last farthing. 
But the whole of life is an education, a discipline, 
that is calculated to result in that choice, that will, 
that action which is in harmony with the laws of 
nature, that are, in themselves, essentially spiritual. 



6 



Preface 



Law vindicates itself by its power to save, not by 
destroying. Law is our divinely appointed school- 
master, and it is capable of justifying its appoint- 
ment. It is appointed with a purpose and for an 
end; and the divine ends are believed to be sure 
by the Author. 



Spkingfield, Mass., September, 1887, 



/ 



CONTENTS 



Preface, . . . . . . .3 

Introductory, . . . . . 11 

Of Embryological and Cell Life, . . . .12 

Of Life and Matter, ..... 25 

Of Analogies, . . . . . . 31 



Of Law as Manifested in Organic Evolution, . 39 

Of the Fundamental Spiritual Identity between Man and 

God in Point of Essential Nature, . . .47 

Of the Origin and Evolution of Consciousness, . 53 

Of a Conscioussness of Limitations, . . -59 

Conclusion, . . . . . 65 



Death has no power the immortal part to slay; 
That, when its present body turns to clay, 
Seeks a fresh home, and with unminished might 
Inspires another frame with life and light. 

Pythagoras. 

All that is, at ail, 

Lasts ever, past recall; 

Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand suro: 
What entered into thee, 
That was, is, and shall be: 

Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure. 

B.'owning. 



THE EVOLUTION OF IMMORTALITY 



Introductory 

It may be stated, with little fear of contradic- 
tion, that the two great questions ever uppermost 
are God and Immortality. There never was a 
time, however, in all the history of the world, 
when the advanced or progressive thought of man 
with reference to these questions came so near 
centering upon a common plane as to-day. The 
pioneers of theology, philosophy and science, 
having come up different sides of the mountain of 
thought and research, are now looking each other 
squarely in the face at the top. Each school is 
eagerly endeavoring, as never before, to compass 
the whole range of revelation. The time has 
come when science even claims its inherent right 
to deal with them. The age of strict materialistic 
science has passed, and the world is beginning to 
understand that there is a scientific method in 
dealing with things that do not pertain to matter 
alone; that science, philosophy and religion are 
divine handmaids of truth, with common aims 
and purposes working for the evolution of the 
common brotherhood of man. 

So much has been said and written in regard 
to the question of Immortality, that every con- 
ceivable shade of thought or speculation bearing 
upon it would seem to have been presented. 
There remains, however, one line of suggestive 



12 



The Evolution of Immortality 



thought that, so far as personal observation ex- 
tends, has not been touched upon ; to briefly trace 
which is the purpose of this study. 

It would seem reasonable, at least, to suppose 
that we may gain some reliable data upon which 
to postulate a continued life by looking backward 
along the line of the actual past from whence we 
came; and, also, by a study of life itself as mani- 
fested by phenomena. " The history of the 
world," it has been said, " is the true premise upon 
which to postulate its future." If this be so, it 
would seem to be equally true with reference to 
man as an individual. If we may discover his or- 
ganic history and his trend, in a broad sense, we 
shall come nearer an apprehension of his ultimate 
destiny. It is along this line of thought that at- 
tention is invited. Let us drop out of mind, on 
this occasion, all the commonly cited arguments 
in favor of an immortal existence, and thought- 
fully observe any suggestive analogies that may 
be found in physical science, especially in embryo- 
logical and cell life, that may be justly considered 
as prophetic of a conscious individual existence 
after what is called death. 



Of Embryological and Cell Life 

What do we know of our own life history? 
What do we know of its origin? It is not enough 
to say that we were born of this or that parentage, 
or at a certain time or place* This relates simply 



Of Etnbryological and Cell Life 1 3 



to an event, or to particular events in our history, 
and only to that part of it which appears at this 
stage of our being, this world of our existence. 
We have already lived in another stage or world, 
and have been brought forth — born — from it into 
this. We, here, awake to a consciousness of self 
hood and, at least, find ourselves related to an in- 
finite past by an uninterupted connection. Look- 
ing about us for further facts, we find that it may 
be fairly assumed that life, or the life principle, is 
potentially and essentially the same in all past 
stages of our being; that it made its own con- 
ditions and formed its own environments, having 
asked no questions of us; that to be born or to 
die simply means, for the real identity, a change of 
worlds or environments \ that birth and death are 
allied functions of life, each the act or event of 
the emergence of an identity from a lesser to a 
higher stage or circle of existence / that one pos- 
sesses, or exhibits, the quality of destruction no 
more than the other; that birth marks the begin- 
ning of a definite stage of physical existence, 
while death is its closing act, and also an introduc- 
tion to another and higher stage; that the only 
difference between the now and then, in each suc- 
cessive stage, is that which results from growth or 
development, " the unfoldinent or evolution of a 
potentiality or germality that each preceding stage 
possessed, although obscured from the sense per- 
ception of finite beings." 

These conclusions are based upon general facts 



14 The Evolution oj Immortality 



of physical science, and find very strong support in 
that part of our history that relates to embryolog- 
ical and cell life. Hence it would seem apparent 
that our life history affords a reasonable premise 
upon which to postulate future states. It may be 
pardonable if it is here stated that a personal study 
in this direction has led to that apprehension of 
the real meaning of life which is the true basis 
of a recognition of its possessing the quality of 
immortality. I do not think this too strong a 
statement. If, however, " our perception of one 
object contains a series of recognitions," we may 
not hope to make clear to others the validity of 
such recognition. Where demonstration is im- 
possible, suggestions are often the only alternative. 

It is proposed to notice here, however, only a 
few prominent facts that seem to be characteristic 
of antecedent stages, and which, in accordance 
with the laws of analogy and continuity, seem to 
be prophetic in reference to future states of being. 

In order to understand the full import and sig- 
nificance of the embryological period, we must 
trace it back to its inception; to that moment when 
it was brought forth, or born. This occurred at 
the moment of molecular union or coalescence of 
the nuclei of two simple cells; simple but yet un- 
fathomable with divine mystery and containing 
the potency of all that we have been, are and 
shall be. But have we reached here, in the union 
of two cells, the origin of our life history? By 
no means. We may have reached a point in it 



Of Embiyological and Lea Life 15 



•when we can say that here begins our identity, or 
personality, as an individual material organism / 
but we have not reached the origin or completed 
the history of our life. Back of the embryolog- 
ical stands the cell life; and back of the cell life 
also stand the antecedents of cell life. Whence 
came these cells ? What are their functions ? And 
what is the relation of one cell to the other ? These 
are questions of very great importance. Espe- 
cially is this so of the last, for, in this field, as in 
all others, "Knowledge is a perception of re- 
lations." 

The embryological life, it has been stated, owes 
its immediate origin to the union of two living 
cells. Each of these cells, however, has had a 
distinct antecedent life history, and is capable of 
distinct functions. Neither of them alone is ca- 
pable of assuming that higher expression of life 
which is manifested by reproduction. Either 
cell, left to itself, enters upon no higher form or 
stage of life. Let us, at this point especially, 
reverently view the facts; for the histology, 
physiology and functions of these cells are in- 
tensely suggestive of divine relations and creative 
power. It is very difficult to express my thought 
here so that it will be clearly apprehended. Science 
has positively determined so little, especially with 
reference to the peculiar function of each of the 
two cells, that a very large range is left to mere 
inference. But in regard to the organic structure 
of each we do know, approximately at least, many 



1 6 The Evolution of Immortality 



things that, by the law of analogy, give more or 
less force to certain inferences or conclusions. 
The paternal cell, for instance, is highly organ- 
ized, and possesses the power of motion, and of 
locomotion also, to an extent; while the maternal 
cell exhibits no organic structure, and consequently 
no motion peculiar to organisms is manifested. It 
presents rather the appearance of matter in the mass 
or homogeneous state. The paternal cell is active, 
energetic, and apparently capable of acting upon 
the maternal cell and imparting to it an impulse, 
a " mode of motion," or power, that is inherently 
foreign to the latter, or that would, at least, other- 
wise remain latent. The maternal cell is, in 
many ways, suggestive of that phenomenon that 
is called inorganic matter; while the paternal cell 
is equally suggestive of the life-giving principle, 
called spirit. In other words, the paternal cell 
seems to be the organized, vitalizing, life-giving 
agent which, acting upon the maternal cell, ren- 
ders it capable of the resultant phenomenon of a 
higher form or expression of life. 

Some of our scientists state as their opinion, 
based upon a long and careful investigation, that 
the paternal cell is the differentiating agent; that 
the maternal cell represents the conservative ele- 
ment,while the paternal gives the impulse to change, 
or differentiation. In other words, the principle 
of inheritance — the first in the trinity of forces 
that stand back of and surround every individ- 
ual being, governing and controlling its destiny 



Of Embryological a?id Cell Life 17 



— is vastly stronger in the maternal element 
than in the paternal ; while in the latter is found 
represented the second force of the above trinity, 
— the impulse to differentiate, or the power of 
adaptation to environment, which is the third 
force alluded to; a trinity of forces, but, never- 
theless, a unity. And here, between inheritance 
on the one hand and environment on the other, 
Is, surely, a tremendous demand for a quality of 
force that, in its essence at least, shall be no less 
than spiritual. If we regard environment in its 
largest and deepest significance, as forms of spir- 
itual forces ever pressing down upon us, then we 
may perceive a plan of immense promise to the 
individual in the fact that each possesses, as a pri- 
mary endowment, that which is designed to be re- 
sponsive to the touch of a universe of spiritual reali- 
ties external to it. We thus gain the high vantage 
ground of supremacy over mere animal inherit- 
ance. It is a divine way outward and upward 
that is coeval with the beginning of the physical 
organism. 

Whatever the deeper law of unity may be that 
runs throughout the universe of phenomena, there 
seems to be, as an antecedent of such phenomena, 
a duality. In tracing the history of all phenomena 
we soon come to apparent duality — spirit and 
matter. And so this duality, or apparent duality, 
that stands back of organized matter is repre- 
sented in the universe of organisms, and seems 
to stand back of the reproduction of organisms. 



1 8 The Evolution of Immortality 



At this point I should state the proposition in this 
manner: In the realm of causation the repro- 
duction of organisms is dependent upon the 
united forces of the male and female elements, in 
much the same manner as organized matter is de- 
pendent upon the united forces of — so called — 
spirit and matter. In other words, the essential 
division of the universe of organisms into male 
and female, is in strict cor res pondence with the 
conception that posits spirit and matter as staitd- 
ing back of organized matter, or of organis?ns 
themselves. Thus we have here, to a significant 
extent, the poetical Genesis portraiture reproduced 
in the realm of physical phenomena. The maternal 
cell seems void of any form or suggestion of a 
higher order of life until it is " breathed upon " — 
quickened — by the paternal cell. But when this 
occurs a new and higher form or expression of 
activity begins, called the embryological life. 

The history, therefore, of the present stage of 
our life — not our organism — can be traced back 
on a line of unbroken continuity to the commence- 
ment of the embryological stage. Here it seems 
to branch off into two distinct channels, from 
whence it has descended. But if our analogy is 
true to the essential facts in the case, the two 
channels are, on the one hand, that of matter, 
while the other is that of life or spirit ; and it is in 
the latter, the spiritual, that our true personality 
is to be found. The life-principle or spirit always 
remains potentially or in essence the same, while 



Of E?nbryological and Cell Life 19 



the forms and combinations of matter — the body 
— by which the life-principle expresses itself, are 
constantly changing. It is never any two hours, 
or even two minutes, absolutely the same. As a 
suit of clothes is to the body, so is the body to 
the individuality or ego; and it should "have con- 
sideration only as a phenomenon which suits 
wants." "Body has its proper consideration 
when measured simply as a tool is viewed." 
Changing and changeable forms of matter j>er se 
cannot constitute personality. The " I Am " of 
any organism is something else than mere matter. 
The simple elements of matter that constitute the 
organism come and go continually, forming a 
current of atoms through every part of our 
bodies, leaving, however, the individuality un- 
touched and secure. The life-principle remains 
essentially the same through all the varied 
changes and stages of our life history back as far 
as it is possible to trace it. Hence, while the unity 
or individuality of our present stage of existence 
seemingly emerges from duality, I hope to be 
able to add further evidence later on that it is only 
seeming, and that in reality it is, and also springs 
from, a unity. 

Returning now to the two cells upon the union 
of which the embryological stage depends, let us 
inquire from whence they came, and what of 
their origin and antecedents. One thing at least 
is clear. Each of these cells has had a dis- 
tinct life history. Each has had an inception, an 



20 The Evolution of Immortality 



unfoldment, and a death to preceding environ- 
ments ; the latter being its birth into a new world 
or stage of existence. The maternal cell, for in- 
stance, was once an inhabitant of the ovarian 
world, and was born from it into the uterine 
world. The paternal cell has also a similar his- 
tory. Thus we see that even cell life is depend- 
ent upon a pre-existing life. Trace cell life back 
as far as it may be traced and we are still con- 
fronted by a pre-existing life. It should also be 
noted that the farther it is traced at each step the 
evidences multiply that life — all life — has its 
origin in the spiritual life, God. The farther back 
we go, through one form of organism after an- 
other, through each successive grade and system, 
we find life assuming, to an ever increasing ex- 
tent, a form which declares its divine origin and 
essence. In this connection, however, an import- 
ant fact should not be overlooked: The body, 
or organism, which the life-principle inhabits, 
and through which it manifests itself is, in each 
successive backward stage, of a lower order; 
and, furthermore, the manifestations of life, are 
limited by, and dependent upon, the structure 
and complexity of the organism with which the 
life-principle has environed itself. Hence we 
catch a glimpse of the necessity of a constant 
succession of births and deaths, so called, if we 
are to progress endlessly, or have already entered 
upon a continuous, j:>rogressive existence. Viewed 
from the standpoint of physical science, to die — 



Of Embryological and Cell Life 



21 



that is, to change our environment, to outgrow 
any given material world of limitations — is as 
much a necessity of growth as to be born. Death 
— a natural death — is, in fact, the culmination, or 
culminating act of a given stage of existence. It 
is, in reality, simply a new birth; a going forth of 
our real selves from organic limitations, or envi- 
ronments, that have become too restricted, and are 
no longer capable of administering to our real 
growth, into a new sjuhere, a larger world, a 
higher and more complex form of material or- 
ganism, in which, and through which, the life- 
principle within may have a broader, deeper 
and higher scope and range of manifestation. It 
comes about as the result of the inadequacy of 
the organism to adapt itself to the demands of an 
unfolding life. The same life-principle that wove 
into form the individual organism, lays it down 
again when it has served the purpose for which 
it was summoned into existence. 

"In death's unrobing room we strip from round us 
The garments of mortality and earth ; 
And, breaking from the embryo state that bound us, 
Our day of dying is our day of birth." 

This has been the course of the physical law of 
birth and death thus far in our life's history. 
What reason then have we to suppose or fear that 
we have reached a point in our history when we 
are to pass under a new order or system of laws 
entirely the opposite in result? Natural laws are 
not fickle or changeable; they are, rather, con- 
tinuous and uniform. 



22 



The Evolutioit of Immortality 



As in the past all the forms of physical or- 
ganization which our own life-principle has 
evolved for itself have been invariably from a 
lower to a higher, so we must infer that this self- 
same life-principle is now engaged, as it has al- 
ways been engaged throughout the successive 
stages of its past development, in evolvi?ig an 
orga7iism, through and. by which it may hereafter 
express itself more in harmony with its own 
nature and essence. In other words, our present 
physical body stands in similar relation to the 
spiritual body to be, as does the placenta to the 
embryo, the graafian vesicle to the ovum, or the 
membranes of this cell to its nucleated content. 
When the placenta, the embryological body, dies, 
the embryo comes forth into this, to it, new and 
strange world of experience and unfoldment. 
When the graafian vesicle reaches maturity or has 
completed its work, its product, the ovum, is born 
into a new stage of existence and environment in 
a manner strikingly analogous to the birth of the 
embryo. And so, in accordance with our analogy, 
when this physical body shall die, the spiritual 
body, its nucleated content, will go forth, freed 
from the limitations of its physical being, into a 
new sphere of greater possibilities and larger 
scope, carrying with it the same life-principle 
which it has inherited from the great past, re-en- 
forced and ennobled by its legacy of human ex- 
perience and acquired consciousness, the priceless 
result of this stage of our existence. 



Of Embryological and Cell Life 23 



Let us now return to that point where it is 
stated that our identity as an individual organism 
may be said to have commenced ; the molecular 
union of the two parent cells. The individual 
life of each cell is merged into a single channel 
and a new form of life commences, namely, the 
embryological existence ; the highest function of 
which is to evolve a new and higher material 
organism or body. The vivified or quickened 
maternal cell does this work unaided, apparently, 
by any other than its own inherent force or pow- 
ers, excepting that of environment, up to a certain 
time, when it seeks for aid — nutrition — from 
without itself. It first evolves for itself a body, 
called the placenta, by the aid of which the growth 
and elaboration of an embryological organiza- 
tion is carried forward. When this work is com- 
pleted, or when a human body is so far evolved 
as to render the placental world too restricted, the 
body dies and //, the embryo, is brought forth into 
this world of infinitely larger scope and possibili- 
ties, relatively, than its former environment. Here 
death and birth are as essentially to be found as any- 
where, and the inference is plainly apparent. The 
body alone, having served its purpose, dies ; but 
not until another and more highly organized sub- 
stitute is prepared to take its place as the home of 
the life and spirit that is undying and immortal. 
The same life-principle prepares for itself another 
and higher mode of expression. It is a unity or 
continuity of life. There never has been, nor will 



24 The Evolution of Immortality 



there be, another life ; it is the same life that has 
come down through the past, appears in this phase 
of its expression, and shall pass on into other and 
higher forms of material organization. 

For an analogy in our physical history we will 
return once more to the two cells, by the union of 
which ensues the embryological stage of our ex- 
istence. The organic history of these cells, both 
paternal and maternal, can be traced back through 
what may be called a succession of births and 
deaths, or a bringing forth of the life-principle 
from one form of organization to another. The 
ovum or maternal cell has an inception, develop- 
ment and maturity in the graafian vesicle or follic- 
ular body. From this body, when mature, it has 
a birth strikingly analogous to the birth of the 
perfected embryo. The graafian vesicle may 
therefore be termed the external body, or forma- 
tive world, of the ovum, the ovum itself being the 
internal body, or the seat, or center, of the life of 
the vesicle. The graafian vesicle is, in turn> 
formed, developed and matured within its ovarian 
environment. But the life-principle of each indi- 
vidual cell precedes all forms of material organi- 
zation that can be traced. Back of each stage of 
organization, or material expression, stands a pre- 
existing organism that life has woven into exist- 
ence. In fact the life of these cells may be traced 
back into the dim distance of infinite time, beyond 
even the marriage, so to speak, of spirit and 
matter. 



Of Life and Matter 



25 



Of Life and Matter 

The larger object of this study being to trace 
the history of our own individual life, rather than 
of the organism, and to draw conclusions there- 
from, we must not rest content with following it 
back to a point where it first expresses itself in 
organic form. We, however, can glance merely 
at the general thought of the origin and nature 
of life. 

Were it possible for us to go back in imagina- 
tion to the time when a " speck " of protoplasm 
was first evolved from the long train of antecedent 
modes of creative energy, could we even then say 
that this is life? By no means. We have what 
is termed ''live" and "dead" protoplasm. We 
have protoplasm, it is true, wherever there is life; 
but the most that can be claimed for it is that " it 
is the basis of life " ; the form in which life is first 
manifested. Life comes to it and also leaves it 

Granting that the entire phenomena of worlds 
and of the universe, the expression of life in all 
forms, are the natural and orderly sequence of mat- 
ter set in motion, the question of the origin of life 
would still remain unanswered. All that can be 
consistently claimed, in view of phenomena, is that 
it is an evolution, or unfolding, simply of that 
which had been previously subjected to an infold- 
ing, or involution. Evolution implies an involu- 
tion. An infolding must, in the very nature of 
things, precede an unfolding. And so, when life is 
spoken of as being the result of the evolution of 



26 The Evolution of Immortality 



matter, or of matter set in motion, it would seem 
to be a manifest absurdity. It would be nearer 
the truth to say that matter had, at some far off 
point of time, been subjected to an involution of 
life, and is now engaged in the consequent process 
of evolution. In other words, as the sun, with its 
radiancy of life-giving energies, the requisite of 
living activities of all planetary life, is to this 
planet of ours, so is Deity to the whole universe 
of matter. Matter infolds, or involves, the Divine 
radiancy and, therefore, evolves, or unfolds, this 
stored radiancy; the manifestations of which proc- 
ess we have been in the habit of calling life. I 
said that something like this would seem to be 
nearer the truth than the proposition that life is a 
property, or product, of matter. But science and 
philosophy do not allow us to-day to rest the 
matter here. The veil has been pushed aside so 
as to permit of a still deeper and more reasonable 
hypothesis relative to the mysteries of life and 
Deity. 

We have traced, or may so trace, our history 
back — as all of life's phenomena must be traced — 
to the united energies, or Oneness of God and 
Matter, — I say oneness of God and matter. I do 
not wish to be understood as claiming that dualism 
is the ultimatum of this or any view. In the 
ultimate analysis of matter nothing will be found 
but force, or God. This, at least, is a reasonable 
hypothesis, based upon the scientific investigation 
and deduction of the highest living authorities. If 



Of J^ife and Matter 



37 



the entire material universe is now reducible to 
about sixty " simple elements," who shall say that 
this number may not be further reduced, even until 
the unit element is found ? A scientist remarked 
to me, not long since, that " the reduction of all 
the chemical elements to one, is, to-day, an entirely 
feasible hypothesis." All of our leading scientists 
will, I think, agree that different forms of matter 
— so called in a popular sense — are really but 
"modes of motion" of forces, all of which are 
reducible finally to one common force ; that the 
"elements" will finally be found to be nothing 
but "a mode of wave motion," an expresslo?z of 
Deity. In other words, that " the elements are no 
elements at all, being simply phenomena arising 
out of and going back into a primary or nou- 
menon." Matter j>er se — that is, matter separated 
from, or independent of, its properties — is not 
apprehensible to physical sense. Hence matter, 
as such, cannot reasonably be called a sensible 
substance. It is, as viewed to-day, far more sug- 
gestive of a unity of all being than of a duality. 
The real would seem to be a noumenon, that 
which sub-stands — stands under or back of — 
phenomena. But in speaking of matter as phe- 
nomena, simply, we have to use words that are 
liable to be misunderstood. I prefer to use the 
word Oneness, rather than any term that might 
imply that matter and Deity are distinct entities, 
one over against the other. The union, or one- 
ness, is so complete, that if we say matter is 



28 The Evolution of Immortality 



God's organic body, or the form inhabited by 
Him, through and by which he manifests Him- 
self, we should very nearly state the truth. The 
same idea may, however, be stated as follows: 
The universe of matter may be said to be God, if 
we remember that the Universe fer se is an Infi- 
nite organism, having an Ego, and that the ego 
is the real of any organism ; the thing itself 
behind phenomena. 

The scientist, when looking with analytical 
eyes at any form or combination of matter, be it 
a drop of water or an ocean, one of the constit- 
uents of air or the whole atmosphere that en- 
velops him, a grain of sand or a mountain, an 
atom of ether or a star that floats upon the bosom 
of a boundless etheric sea, an asteroid or a uni- 
verse of planets, sees, as the result of his analysis, 
" motion" motion of different kinds, degrees, 
"modes"; but all, all^ quivering, pulsating, vi- 
brating in answer to an adequate touch. Where 
motion is found there must be will behind it; 
where will is, there also intelligence is. And so 
there must be behind, or in, this universe of in- 
finite motion an Infinite Will, an Infinite Intelli- 
gence, an Infinite Life, that by and through this 
infinite phenomenon of motion — life — is express- 
ing an Infinite Thought. The universe of matter 
then is, to us, a materialization of a thought of 
God. 

If the scientist, awed by the immensity of hig 
vision, calls the primal source of this wonderful 



Of Life and Matter 



29 



manifestation an Infinite Force, this is so because 
of education. If another is witness to the same 
phenomenon, traces it to the same source and, in 
an ecstasy of soul, exclaims: Behold an Infinite 
God! will the wise man intercept the current 
of uplifting and ennobling emotions in each by 
raising the insignificant question of terms to be 
made use of in the attempt to give expression to 
that which is simply inexpressible? If, as Goethe 
says, 

" 'Tis feeling all," 

then let the dogmatists enshroud it in such " cloud 
and smoke " as mere names imply. The vibrat- 
ing feeling in the finite is the measure of his re- 
sponse to the motion of Infinitude itself. 

I will recall attention, at this point, to certain 
phenomena that relate to the embryological 
period, commencing with the molecular union or 
vivification of the maternal cell. Living, if we 
may so term it, for a time upon the material re- 
sources of itself, a segmentation of cells takes 
place. Thus growth or development occurs, and 
the time arrives when external resources are 
necessary for the purposes of nutrition and sup- 
port of its work. The supply is at hand, and is 
found in the environing mother membrane, with 
which a vital attachment is formed. Thus the 
embryo gains such material substances as are re- 
quired to complete and perfect the material human 
organism or body. No mother, therefore, is, in 
reality, so entirely a mother, in a strictly exact 



3o 



The Evolution of Immortality 



sense, as is popularly supposed. She receives a 
life and, for a time, nourishes it, modifies it some- 
what and, when it comes into this world, environs 
it with her care, love, training, etc., then gives it 
back to itself and its author again, her work 
being done. Its real father is God; its real 
mother is Nature. Human parentage is merely a 
channel through which for a time an individual 
life courses its way. Its lineage must inevitably 
be traced back to the mysterious but absolute 
unity or oneness of God and matter. 

"Art Thou the Life? 
To Thee, then, do I owe each beat and breath, 
And wait Thy ordering of my hour of death 

In peace or strife." 

There is a more or less vivid recognition of this 
fact in the soul of every man and woman. From 
the deeper consciousness of every one there sooner 
or later arises a sense of sonship to God. We 
come to see and feel, in early life or later on, that 
human parentage is merely an instrument. That 
"my Father" means nothing less than God, and 
that " my Mother " is another word for Nature. 
This consciousness of ours is, therefore, in perfect 
harmon}^ with the theory that traces life back to 
Deity, while the organism is referred to Nature 
or matter. This, however, does not necessarily 
imply a duality of origin, nor a dual individual 
nature, as may be apprehended by carefully study- 
ing matter itself, in the light of the scientific 
philosophy of to-day. 



Of A?ialogies 



3 1 



Thus viewed matter is seen to be phenomenal, 
arising out of and resolvable into a primary uni- 
versal, or spiritual force. And so man's physical 
nature is transient, phenomenal, unreal. The only 
real, the essence of being, is the spiritual. The 
spiritual sub-stands the physical, and finally event- 
uates itself as the ego, or soul, of the physical. 
From this point on through this stage of man's 
existence he has relations in a sense dualistic in 
condition: physical needs and spiritual needs. 
But in a larger sense there is here, even, no duality, 
but a unity. 

" All good things 
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps 

[soul." 

Of Analogies 

It is stated, at a foregoing point, that the high- 
est function of the embryonic stage of our being 
is to evolve a newer and higher material organ- 
ism or body, which should better express the un- 
folding life-principle, the history of which we 
have endeavored to very briefly trace. If this be 
true, may we not assume, with considerable logical 
confidence, that the highest physical function of 
this stage of our existence is to evolve a still 
higher and more complex organism or body, in 
which and through which the divine spirit or life 
— our real personality — may become endowed 
with the possibilities of a higher, broader and 
deeper expression of its own nature and inherent 



32 The Evolution of Immortality 



essence? Let us see what data there may be in 
our past history and present condition or state to 
warrant such an assumption. 

Attention is first called to an histological and 
physiological analogy. All cells present an ex- 
ternal and an internal body; an external mem- 
branous body and an internal nucleated body. 
The graafian follicle has a nucleus which, being 
evolved, and after it reaches a state independ- 
ent of its follicular body, we call an ovum. 
This, in turn, is found to possess an external and 
internal distinction or body. Being vitalized, or 
quickened, by the paternal life, its membranous, 
or external body, develops along certain lines, in- 
dicating a temporal existence — placental, — while 
the germ center or nucleated body develops into a 
state or form denominated a human embryo. 
The placental body dying, it, the embryo, is born 
into this stage of our existence, still being — ac- 
cording to the latest histological researches — a 
vaster cell, or a vitally connected unity of cells. 
This being so, is it not reasonable to suppose that 
our present external bodies possess nucleated bodies 
that, in turn, shall also evolute into forms suitable 
for external bodies as we pass on one step more? 

This is my analogy, and I am desirous that it 
be clearly understood. I will partially repeat it. 
The graafian cell has a membranous external 
body and a nucleated inner body. The inner or 
nucleated body develops and is finally born from 
its internal environment — the graafian cell — into 



Of Analogies 



33 



an existence independent of it. It is now called 
an ovum, and the follicular body that constituted 
its former external body dies and becomes entirely 
disorganized, the life-principle having been trans- 
ferred to the ovum. The ovum, also, passes 
through almost identically the same or an analo- 
gous process of development in its organic evolu- 
tion. Its nucleated or inner body develops into 
an embryo, and leaves, finally, its external body, 
the placenta, and comes forth into a new environ- 
ment, this world of ours in which we now live. 
Now the laws of organic evolution must cease to 
apply further, or else this external body of ours 
has an inner or nucleated body that is being, at 
this moment, developed, and will ultimately pass 
out of this external body, that we see and know 
so well, into an existence as independent of it as 
we to-day are independent of our former placental 
bodies. There would seem to be left us but one 
of two inevitable conclusions: Either we pass on 
to a higher stage of organic evolution, independ- 
ent of the present state, or the uniformity and 
continuity of nature's laws no longer have appli- 
cation and relation to us as individuals. Either 
we continue to live, or God's laws must seem to 
be mutable. 

If evolution, as some have claimed, relates sim- 
ply to the perpetuation and gradual improvement 
of the race, ignoring the individual ; if there is to 
be no spiritual consummation as the result of the 
infinite past that relates to the physical develop- 



34 The Evolution of Immortality 



ment of man, then " nothing but the Infinite pity 
is sufficient for the infinite pathos of human life." 

The prophetic eye of Emerson saw " the Uni- 
verse represented in an Atom, in a moment of 
time." We, assuredly, in the light of scientific 
philosophy, ought to be able to see the race rep- 
resented in the individual. And if the same laws 
that relate to the universe also relate with equal 
force to the atom, we must conclude that the 
operation of those laws which result in the evolu- 
tion of the race applies as well to the units that 
compose the race. It is now generally conceded 
that evolution has reached the acme of physical 
development; that, in the very nature of things, 
evolution, as far as man is concerned, must here- 
after proceed along the lines of mental and spir- 
itual growth. This is, therefore, an age when 
not only the grandest and most far-reaching 
thought and effort of man, but the inherent forces 
of nature as well, seem centered upon the prob- 
lems of education and of character building; of, in 
other words, impressing upon and embodying in 
the individual a conception of the phenomenality 
of the physical and the reality of the spiritual. 

Man to-day, as never before, is endeavoring to 
work in harmony with the forces of nature that 
" make for Righteousness " ; and this is secured 
for the race only as secured by and for the indi- 
vidual. The individual is, therefore, the one 
essential fact and concern. " It takes all mankind 
to make a man, and each man when he dies takes 



Of Analogies 



35 



a whole earth away with him." " It is to the 
honor of human nature, and what can be said of 
no other creature, that the best fruits of all to- 
gether suffice for no more than to make each one 
what he may be." Once apprehend the fact, so 
prominently dawning upon the mind of the 
world to-day, that the spiritual is the only real 
substance in the universe ; that all phenomena 
must be accounted for upon a spiritual basis ; that 
the spiritual nature of man is, therefore, potential 
in, and emerges from, the physical ; that he is 
here undergoing a process of education and devel- 
opment — not "probation and trial" — subject to 
the directing agency of a measureless and benefi- 
cent spiritual environment ; that Love — the very 
heart of Deity — holds him in a grasp as strong as 
the immeasurable sweep of gravitation — " the 
very muscle of Omnipotence" — a spiritual force, 
before the operation of which "no slightest rustle 
is stirred amid the quiet air"; that as the result of 
this environment the spiritual nature of man is 
awakened and, finally, learns to express itself in 
those qualities of being that are termed "God- 
like," " spiritual," etc., more apparent in some 
than others, but most common with those men and 
women who have established the most intimate con- 
nection with this real, subtle, spiritual environment 
— when all of these things are apprehended the 
real significance of life, our own personal indi- 
vidual lives, will be better understood, and the 
clearer will appear the reasonableness of the faith 



36 The Evolution of Immortality 



that holds that, apart from an immortality, life 
has no divine meaning. 

We see thus something of the possibilities that 
open before the vision of our souls. We have 
become self-conscious beings, and consequently im- 
mortal. The amount of immortality that we shall 
possess now depends upon our self-determining 
power. Immortality is not a question of time or 
space. It is measured rather by the terms of 
quantity and quality, and is to be in us if any- 
where. In each individual man an immortality is 
inherent. It was germal at the most distant point 
of his physical history. It came to birth at the 
moment of self -consciousness . He is environed 
by an infinite immortality, and can lay hold, here 
and now, upon all that he will. " With man is 
power to make the kind of a world in which he 
elects to live." While content with the physical 
he necessarily lives in the basement of being. But 
there is sunshine and a purer atmosphere above him, 
and that within him, however latent it may be, 
which cannot permanently rest satisfied with the 
darkness and pestilential damps of a sensual 
existence. 

Beside the power of this environment to drive 
him into the upper stories, there comes also the 
compelling influence of a great company of 
emerged souls who, having tasted of the founts of 
a higher life, are impelled thereby to go down 
into the highways and byways and compel them 
therein to move on and upward. 



Of Analogies 



37 



Life is manifested by and through transforma- 
tion, and this transforming process we call death ; 
but it is really the condition of higher life. Look 
at nature all around and see if this be not so. As 
with the contained germ of an acorn which, prop- 
erly conditioned, draws to itself and selects that 
which it requires for its growth, and in so doing 
breaks through and casts off its former sheath or 
body, so the character of man and, consequently, 
the nature of his immortality, is determined upon 
the principle of rejection and selection, by the 
arrest and fixation, the crystallization and conver- 
sion to use of those more than ethereal currents of 
inspiration, of aspiration, of sentiment, of idealism, 
that so powerfully, yet tenderly appeal to us, 
" woo and court us from every object in nature, 
from every fact in life, from every thought of the 
mind," from every intuition of the soul. We must 
select and appropriate, like the oak, from the earth 
beneath us and from the upper air of the invisible 
and immaterial influences that emanate from the 
all-pervading and all-environing " Over-Soul." 
" The only way into nature is to enact our best 
insight." In doing this " instantly we are higher 
poets, and can speak a deeper law." And by so 
doing we are constantly being transformed from a 
lower to a higher life ; from a material to a spir- 
itual plane. In dying as to the physical and being 
born spiritually is found the most complete solu- 
tion of the problem of life as we know it here 
and now. He that has lived the most; that has 



38 The Evolution of Immortality 



gone down the deepest and risen the highest in 
the range of human possibilities, will be the last 
to deny this assertion. Is it, then, within the 
range of reason to suppose, for a moment, that 
an Infinite Intelligence could plan and purpose 
from the beginning to cut off the subjects of his 
creation, and doom them to an extinction, at the 
point when a co?zsciousness of their being is just 
awakened? " It is," says one, " related of an 
Arab chief, whose laws forbade the rearing of his 
female offspring, that the only tears he ever shed 
were when his daughter brushed the dust from 
his beard as he buried her in a living grave. But 
where are the tears of God as he thrusts back into 
eternal stillness the hands that are stretched out to 
him in dying faith? If death ends life what is 
this world but an ever-yawning grave into which 
the loving God buries his children with hopeless 
sorrow?" Whatever may be said of the "inex- 
orable logic of Love," in reference to an individ- 
ual immortality, any human being that has arrived 
at that stage of his unfoldment denominated self- 
consciousness — "spirit birth" — and knows some- 
thing of the depth of meaning that is involved in 
the term, may, uj>on the moral basis of the inex- 
orable logic of justice^ demand an immortality. A 
human father is justly held accountable to his 
children regarding their physical wants. Is the 
All Father any less morally bound to meet and 
satisfy the spiritual hunger of his children, that 
spiritual hunger being the acme and fruition of all 
their past history ? 



Law in Organic Evolution 



39 



By the logic of Love, by the logic of Justice, 
every self-conscious being must be given an op- 
portunity to realize the possibilities of his nature, 
to satisfy those spiritual aspirations and ideals 
that, independent of personal volition, well up 
from his own inner being; a consummation that 
•every one knows demands an existence that is not 
vouchsafed in the physical stage of our being. 

But this conclusion may find a sufficient basis 
upon a lower plane: that of "a supreme act of 
iaith in the reasonableness of God's work." If 
God's work be reasonable, man must be immortal. 
To our faith we may also add the authority of 
science if we adopt Professor Huntley's definition 
of science. He says: " To my mind, whatever 
doctrine professes to be the result of the applica- 
tion of the accepted rules of inductive and de- 
ductive logic to its subject matter, and accepts, 
within the limits which it sets to itself, the suprem- 
acy o f reason, is science." Professor Du Bois, 
with a still deeper insight, asks: "May we not 
define all science as the verification of the ideal 
in Nature?" Can Nature have any reasonable 
meaning independent of a spiritual consumma- 
tion ? 

Of Law as Manifested in Organic Evolution 

A further argument in favor of the assumption 
stated at the outset of the last chapter is based 
upon the unifor?nity a?id continuity of law as 
manifested not only in organic evolution, but in 



4° 



The Evolution of Immortality 



our own experiences in a mental or psychological 
sense. This is but the expression of, or name we 
give to, another and higher law that stands behind 
and above the more readily observed of nature's 
laws. Let us apply this law to that made manifest in 
organic evolution as it is expressed in our own life 
history, in its various phases. Organic evolution 
exhibits the phenomenon of unity as the result of 
the process or career of nature's laws. In all or- 
ganisms, primal as well as ultimate, we find that 
the unit consists of aggregations of individuals. 
The unit cell is composed of molecules; the mole- 
cules of atoms, etc. The higher and more com- 
plex organisms consist of an aggregation of cells, 
and thus on until man is reached, who, in an or- 
ganic or physical sense, is simply an aggregation 
of cells, vitally connected, and composing, in this 
aggregation of units, a new and higher unit or 
individual. And here, in man, we have the or- 
ganic ultimatum of that of which the unit cell is 
the prototype or original model. 

An aggregation does not destroy the individ- 
uality of the unit presence. In a brick block, for 
instance, the individuality of each separate brick 
is not destroyed by the aggregation or association 
which constitutes a new individuality — a block. 
A unit brick is not a unit block; and a unit block 
is more than a unit brick. But the larger unit 
does not destroy the smaller unit. Again, an ag- 
gregation of blocks may constitute another unit 
of a still superior kind — a city ; but the individ- 



Law in Organic Evolution 



uality of blocks, or bricks, is in no-wise interfered 
with. Each unit or individuality serves its pur- 
pose and performs its proper function. And so 
the unity and individuality of each cell in man is 
maintained. Each cell possesses a function, an 
intelligence, a sense of need and a sense of satis- 
faction, peculiar to itself. Their mutual affinitv, 
however, results in an association, and this asso- 
ciation results in, or composes, a higher and 
more complex organism as individual in its char- 
acter as the individuality of each single unit cell. 
Complexity leads to a higher manifestation of 
life, or intelligence, denominated by some "modes 
of motion." So that the difference between a 
monad and a man may be accounted for upon the 
basis of the difference in the complexity of the 
organic structure of each. Wherever there is 
organism there exists intelligence ; and the higher 
and more complex the organism the greater is the 
intelligence — or mode of motion — manifested. 
There can be no doubt that this is a general law 
of nature. Whence the reasonableness, therefore, 
of the supposition that this law of organic evolu- 
tion goes no farther in the ascending scale of our 
being ? A given form and combination of matter, 
speaking in the gross sense, is canceled — dies — 
but no matter and no force is lost. Physical 
science teaches this if it teaches anything. Both 
are simply transferred; and the transference of 
either, as we have seen in embryology, does not 
affect the personality or individuality of our real 



42 The Evolution of Immortality 



being any further than evolution or growth affects 
it. The line of continuity of being is not inter- 
fered with, or destroyed. 

A continued life implies, in the very nature of 
things, growth ; growth in intelligence, growth in 
the power of apprehension, of the possibility of 
enjoyment and suffering ; growth of insight, 
growth of outsight ; growth of mind, growth of 
soul, growth of spirit. If all of this is a calamity, 
then, in the light of organic evolution, we are 
doomed to suffer it. This, however, implies a 
continual dying, so called ; a continual, incessant 
changing every day and every hour of our exist- 
ence. 

" Who thinks aught can begin to be which formerly was 
not, 

Or that aught which is can perish and utterly decay; 
Another truth I now unfold; no natural birth 
Is thereof mortal things, nor death's destruction final ; 
Nothing is there but a mingling, and then a separation of 
the mingled, 

Which are called a birth and a death by ignorant mortals." 

Has it not always been so? Does not our con- 
scious experience accord with this law ? We all 
have had an existence in the embryological stage, 
and have died to it, and been born from it, into an 
infantile world. As infants we have died, and have 
been born into the world of childhood. We have 
died as children and been born as youth. To the 
youthful stage we have died, and most of us find 



Law in Organic Evolution 



43 



ourselves, at this moment, in that changeful period 
of our existence denominated mature physical life; 
while some of us have passed on to that stage 
called the evening of human existence. Birth 
and death, or "a mingling, then a separation of 
the mingled," surely marks our entire conscious 
course from the beginning. Some of us, who are 
parents, have lost, irrevocably lost, our infants, our 
children, our youth and, it may be, our young men 
and maids. The Jameses and Janes, the Johns 
and Marys, as we call them still, are not what they 
were. Neither are they to-day what they will be 
to-morrow, next year, ten years hence. Still we 
call them our children; or, in a deeper sense, ours. 
We scarcely notice that they are constantly dying, 
day by day, and, also, that they as constantly are 
being born again. We are parents — not of sta- 
tionary, mechanical existences, but of processes of 
being; parents — not of a single stage of existence, 
but of potentialities, and of potentialities that are 
constantly realizing, step by step, the unending 
possibilities of being. The same law also applies 
with reference to parents, friends and all with 
whom we associate. Being absent from them, we 
carry their images in our memories. But in order 
to be convinced that our mental processes, called 
memories, are illusive and do not represent the 
real, we need only to meet them again after a 
separation of a few years. Our fond imagery is 
shattered by a mere glimpse of the real ; since the 
then, and the now, our friend, our parent that was, 



The Evolution of Immortality 



is not, and with him that is we must form an 
acquaintance much as if we had never before met. 
They are not what they were. We are not as we 
were. They and we are <9/"what we were. The 
line of continuity is not broken; it is simply ex- 
tended, developed. The individuality is not 
lost; it, rather, has taken on larger proportions, 
become more individualized. 

And so all of us can look back upon an experi- 
ence of a continual dying and a continual becom- 
ing. "The world of phenomena" — ourselves 
included — "is a flowing river, ever changing, yet 
ever the same.' 5 This is a matter of personal 
consciousness, or of self-knowledge, and it is in 
harmony with that part of our history that ante- 
dates our memory, as revealed by science. Shall 
it continue in harmony with its past and present, 
or has it reached its last stage of development, and 
must it soon cease to be ? In the light of the con- 
tinuity and uniformity of nature's laws we cannot 
so believe. Professor Huxley states that "the key 
of the past, as of the future, is to be sought in the 
present." If this be true and we find that the one 
prominent feature of our past, as well as of our 
present, is a continued unf oldment of an inherent 
germal individuality, we have, at least, a strong 
argument in favor of the hypothesis that our future 
is not to be retrogressive. Our individual river 
of life came from the beyond, on the one hand, 
and is passing on to the beyond, on the other. 
But it flows to-day ; did flow yesterday ; and shall 



Law in Organic Evolution 



45 



it not flow to-morrow? We can only judge by 
analogy and by law; fixed, immutable law. This, 
however, we know : A law gave it inception. A 
law gave it the power of flowing. A law chan- 
neled it. A law, or laws, shaped and modified its 
career, making it what it is to-day. As the result 
of law we are floating upon its bosom. Give 
this point a deeper thought. It is significant. We 
are floating on, moving down our own personal 
life stream at the regnant behest of laws which 
are God's own expression of himself to the 
universe of mankind. Does not analogy, does not 
an intelligent conception of law, of God himself, 
declare that we must, that we shall continue to 
move on, being borne forward on this current of 
life that constitutes our own personal stream or 
line of continuity, over which we have little power 
to change its general course, and by no power 
of ours can stop or successfully oppose any 
barrier ? 

Yes, in organic evolution we may discover a 
law, or parallel laws, that may, and apparently 
do, pass over from the material into the immate- 
rial. Before physical birth the activities of life 
appear in the processes of perfecting the structure 
and completing the harmony of function. Con- 
sciousness and volition lie dormant, or in an 
unawakened slumber. The spiritual nature is, as 
yet, simply germal. But at birth new forces are 
brought to bear upon the latent potentialities, and 
a connection is established between the child and 



The Evolution of Im?nortality 



spiritual environments — first that of parental love 
— that are as immeasurable as the very heart of 
God. Heretofore physical laws have held uni- 
versal sway, but now spiritual laws step in and 
contest the field with the physical, asserting an 
ever increasing claim upon the work of future 
development. Self-consciousness is evolved, to- 
gether with a knowledge of other beings of like 
nature around us, and of a Supreme Being over 
all. In short, the spiritual nature is awakened — 
born — and he is a new creature. He is no longer 
a physical being simply, controlled by physical 
laws and subject to a mere physical end. A spir- 
itual nature has emerged from the physical and 
now becomes the center and focal point of forces 
that are to constitute an ever increasing control 
over the unfoldment and destiny of the individual. 
It is an evolution, not a new creation. The 
dividing line between the physical and spiritual 
can no more be definitely drawn than can the 
exact division between the animal and vegetable 
kingdoms or the " organic and inorganic worlds."' 
The physical merges into the spiritual in a similar 
manner to the mergence of childhood into the 
youthful stage, or youthhood into manhood. The 
various stages of our being, from its inception to 
the present, and from the present onward, come 
about as the result of the ordinary working of 
laws that have been constant in all the past history^ 
of the world, and that cannot by any analogy or 
principle, for a moment be supposed to cease to 



Identity between Man and God 



act as we pass on or out of this stage of our exist- 
ence. 

Of the Fundamental Spiritual Identity Between Man 
and God in Point cf Essential Nature 

The foregoing assumption, — namely, that the 
highest physical function of this stage of our 
existence is to evolve a still higher and more com- 
plex material organism — spiritual body — is further 
based upon the utter impossibility of conceiving 
how mind can have any existence independent of 
matter, so called, in some form; how conscious- 
ness can be without organs of sense, how organs 
of sense are possible separated from an organism; 
how an organism can have any being, however 
simple or complex, independent of something to 
organize. We may as well attempt to conceive 
of the existence of God independent of creative 
activities — matter — of substance without a shadow, 
of intelligence without thought, as to conceive of 
life separate from some form of expression. The 
very term itself implies activity, creative energy; 
and "life as manifested in the organism is seen to 
be only a specialized form of the Universal Life." 

Therefore, taking as our starting point the 
premise that life — our own life — had its origin in 
God; that its mode and method of expression is 
dependent upon matter; that any phenomena con- 
nected with life's history in the past are traceable 
directly and solely to this mysterious oneness of 



48 TJie Evolution of Immortality 



God and matter, we must inevitably conclude that 
the same immutable law, ever evolving and widen- 
ing in its scope, is related as persistently to our 
future as it has been to our past existence. 

Here, also, our hope and expectation of an 
individual immortality finds further support. We, 
as individuals, derive cur life from the Infinite 
Life and, consequently, constitute a part of the 
Infinite Life. The relationship is thus seen to be, 
in reality, that of parent and child. Our life 
also expresses itself, as does the parent life — the 
Infinite — through, and by means of, so called 
matter. Herein is manifested something of our 
"likeness" to God; and herein we, like him, are 
also a oneness of life and matter. That is, the life- 
frincijile and the various combinations of matter 
that constitute an organism, or physical body, 
form, in reality, an individual unity. Or, viewing 
matter as simply objective, we, in the subjective 
sense are, solely and simply, life, and a part of the 
Infinite Life. It thus appears that there is a fun- 
damental spiritual identity between man and God 
in point of essential nature. 

Can Deity die, in the sense of becoming extinct? 
If so, then we can die. If He cannot die, how 
may we ? But some one may say that, if we return 
to the source of life, like the contemplated ulti- 
mate return of the planets to their original source, 
what then becomes of our individuality? My 
reply is that the analogy is not a true one. Plan- 
etary matter returning to its source, sun matter, 



Identity between Man and God 49 

may lose its individuality as a material planet ; but 
an individual life, cycling through infinite time 
and space, is quite another thing; and by this in- 
dividual experience in time and space it gains at 
least an immaterial individual consciousness. My 
consciousness is not yours, and it can never be 
yours. Each attains to a consciousness of life, or 
self-knowledge, that is individualized by his own 
peculiar world of experience and inheritance. 
We to-day are individuals, possessing self-con- 
sciousness and self-determining powers; and any 
one who looks deeply into the trend and course 
of the general life of the human race must, it 
seems to me, see clearly that the universal tendency 
of life, in its outlook, at least, is, in the very nature 
of things, in the direction of a greater individuali- 
zation of the individual. Externally the tendency 
is, undoubtedly, toward the unity of the race as a 
race; but internally this simply means a unity of 
aggregated individual units. 

"Whoever lives is individual, 
Without a copy or a precedent." 

In the physical realm of nature we may begin 
— for the purpose of an illustration — with the indi- 
vidual cell. The next stage is that of a community 
of individual cells. Finally, by the processes of 
development, or evolution, an organism results, 
that consists of individual units, vitally connected 
so as to form a larger unit. With the human 
race we call this larger unit man. But this law 



The Evolution of Immortality 



of organic evolution does not stop with the devel- 
opment of the physical. It is the same through- 
out the entire realm of phenomena. It passes 
over into the immaterial and builds up political, 
social and moral institutions in almost precisely 
the same manner as physical organisms are 
formed. In the political aspect of the world the 
start is also had with the individual or unit. Then 
follows a community of units; the town, for in- 
stance. The same law of development, or commu- 
nity of vital interests, results in the organization 
of counties, states and nations ; each a political 
organism, with functions peculiar to its specific 
plane of being, or place in the body politic; but 
all, when perfected, working harmoniously to- 
gether for the common good and equal rights 
of the units, the individual men and women that 
form the organism, or political body. This 
same law of progressive development also fore- 
shadows the time when there will be a confeder- 
acy of nations, a political world organism, a race 
unity, the highest function of which will be to 
secure to the race unit — man — the freedom of a 
fair chance in the exercise of his inalienable right 
to preserve and enhance his inherent individuality. 

The same law applies in social, moral and re- 
ligious realms. There is first the unit, the indi- 
vidual man; then a community of units. These 
units come to feel that, in order to preserve and 
enhance their individuality in the social, moral and 
religious aspect, it is necessary to form a vital 



Identity between Man and God 



combination. Hence social, moral and religious 
organisms result. The unit finds itself under the 
power of external conditions, or environments, 
and thus seeks, or forms, an aggregate — an insti- 
tution — a larger unity. The unit institution is 
soon followed by an aggregation of institutions, 
and thus a higher plane of unity of institutions is 
reached. Each institution becomes an integral 
part of a larger institution, and there is no end, 
nor will there be, to this ascent from institution to 
institution, from unity to unity, until an " absolute 
institution" is reached that shall embrace "an 
infinite community of souls, including the inhabit- 
ants of all worlds that have evolved human beings 
since the beginning; an institution become perfect 
and divine." "Thus immortality is presupposed 
by all the instrumentalities of civilization; " and 
« the completion of spiritual life in the communion 
of all souls is the final cause or purpose of im- 
mortal life." "An institution eliminates from 
itself the defects of the individuals composing it, 
and in turn helps the individuals to free them- 
selves of defect through it." 

11 A people is but the attempt of many 
To rise to the completer life of one. 
And those who live as models for the mass 
Are singly of more value than they all." 

And so "Each shall help all — a finite act; all 
shall help each — an infinite act. Each one thus 
participating in the infinite, invisible communion 
of souls shall thus be made infinite and divine. 



52 Hie Evolution of Immortality 



Hence the Invisible Church of all immortal spirits 
becomes the Institution whose eternity is as divine 
as the Creator's." 

Thus we trace our individual life history back 
to its source, the Infinite Life. It mysteriously 
emanates, or is detached therefrom, and assumes 
particularity, in a physical sense, in the cell 
organism — an individual unit. In the ascending 
scale of the organic evolution of this unit-life, we 
find an aggregation of cell units, vitally connected, 
forming a larger unit, the physical organism of 
man. We next find this larger unit — man — the 
summit of physical creation, rising into a self-con- 
scious , self determining being. His consciousness 
of external conditions and relationships results, as 
the next stage of organic evolution, in the institu- 
tion; which is "a unity of persons, and endowed 
by them with personality." And thus, in his 
progress, he passes over from the material or 
physical into the mental and spiritual realms of 
his being, becoming an integral part of the endless 
aggregation of institutions that include " all intelli- 
gent beings throughout the universe — an eternal 
stream of creation — especially after death has re- 
moved the dividing limits that separate souls of 
one planet from those of another." Life — your 
life and mine — is thus seen to express itself by the 
laws of evolution and continuity of organisms, 
commencing with the physical, passing over into 
the mental and spiritual, resulting in an integral 
part of the Infinite Organism, the universal One- 



Of Consciousness 



53 



ness of all being. In this sense we may say : "As 
is the atom to the universe of matter, so is man to 
Deity." We may thus recognize " self as a part 
of a universal whole, yet a something forever 
separate and individual." The individuality of 
experience, of consciousness, of inheritance, of 
apprehension remains, forming a community and 
communion of individual souls that shall constitute 
an immortal social union of the universe of intel- 
ligences. 

Of the Origin and Evolution of Consciousness 

Returning again totheembryological stage of 
our history, and drawing upon the two prominent 
composite physical facts connected therewith for 
an analogy, we may say that one of the compos- 
ites, matter, is divided into two more or less dis- 
tinct classes; namely, the formed and forming, or, 
more properly, the evolved and evolving bodies. 

In the early stages of embryological life the 
play of life's forces are chiefly engaged in evolv- 
ing the external body — the placenta — which we 
term, later on, the formed or evolved embryonic 
body. When this is advanced or largely accom- 
plished, the forming process more especially 
relates to the embryo itself. This process, so 
active before birth, is not completed until long 
after birth; until, in fact, we have reached that 
period in our present physical stage called matu- 
rity. This only means, of course, physical matu- 



54 



The Evolution of Immortality 



rity, the noon of the day for the human body. 
After this the afternoon sets in and eternal night 
is our fast approaching doom, unless our analogy 
is significant, and life's forces that have never 
ceased to work in a creative or evolving sense in 
all the past, shall concentrate their energies upon 
the higher work of forming a spiritual body, 
which shall serve as the home of the ever evolv- 
ing, undying spirit we call, and know as, our real 
selves. 

Evolution is recognized to-day as the great law 
that relates to the entire physical universe. " Why, 
in truth, should evolution proceed along the gross 
and palpable lines of the visible, and not also be 
hard at work upon the subtler elements which 
are behind — molding, governing and emancipat- 
ing them ? " If by evolution we have come into 
the present stage of existence, through successive 
stages of organic life from the great past, why 
may we not, by the operations of the same eternal 
law, continue to evolve or rise through "succeed- 
ing phases of an endless life"? Unless this be 
true, the spark of life, given of God, if it be not a 
part of God, goes out. If this be untrue, then our 
highest aspirations and deepest consciousness are 
deceptive and play us false. For, as we approach 
and, more especially, as we pass maturity, in the 
physical sense, we become progressively conscious 
of living more exclusively in the mental and 
spiritual world of our being and nature. We 
become more and more conscious of the positive 



Of Consciousness 



55 



limitations of our physical environment; that we 
are barred and fettered, by these externals, from 
the full exercise of powers, and the capabilities of 
apprehension and enjoyment that well up within 
our inmost selves at times when the physical 
seems less dominant. We know that our bodies 
are mortal, and that the weaknesses and ills that 
trouble them are prophetic of "modes of exit." 
Great souls, however, feel that they " can get on " 
without these physical bodies ; that they hinder 
the full expression and activity of their essential 
selves. 

Somehow, for some reason inherent in human 
nature, the vast majority of the human race feels, 
or senses, to a greater or less extent, the existence 
of Deity, spiritual things and immortality. How 
is this fact to be accounted for ? for it is a fact as 
real as the existence of the chemical elements of 
hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, etc. To very many 
the objective reality of the sun to their own sub- 
jective consciousness is no more real than are 
spiritual things, or facts. In the light of physical 
science it seems to be perfectly legitimate to claim 
that all our senses, both physical and spiritual, 
have a common origin in environment. It appears 
to be a reasonable scientific hypothesis that " envi- 
ronment so acts upon an undeveloped organism 
as to produce first a feeling. This feeling, in 
process of time, results in the evolution of organs 
of sense. Through, or by means of, these organs 
of sense sensation is evolved, and, in like manner, 



The Evolution of Immortality 



we finally become conscious beings, and know the 
reality of the objectivity of our environment." 
Herbert Spencer, in recent essays on " Factors of 
Organic Evolution," forcibly shows the truth of 
this position regarding the origin and evolution of 
sense organs. It is a law that can hardly be 
denied. The eye, and all that the organ of sight 
reveals to our consciousness, is dependent upon 
and directly due to the objective reality of the 
sun. " The fact that fishes in water that comes 
under the direct action of the rays of the sun have 
well developed eyes, and the other fact that fishes 
living in the waters of Mammoth Cave do not 
have organs of sight, well illustrate this law." 
Change the environment and the conditions cor- 
respondingly change; the first becomes sightless 
and the latter sight-seeing. "Both classes were 
primally endowed with the possibility of seeing, 
but the reality of sight depended upon environ- 
ment." The fact that any see is thus correlative 
proof of the objective existence of the sun. The 
same is true with reference to all the other sense 
organs. The primal organisms possessed, simply, 
the possibilities of sense and consciousness, but 
the evolution of sense organs and, consequently, 
of consciousness, is due solely to environment. 
Heredity, adaptation and environment — the trinity 
of forces before alluded to — "seem to be the 
creative forces that result in man's present physi- 
cal condition. In other words, certain objective 
forces operating through vast periods of time 



Of Consciousness 



57 



have determined man to be what we see him to 
be at present." 

The significance of this physical fact, in this 
connection, is that "for every fact in the physical 
constitution of man, there is a corresponding 
creative fact or force in the environment which 
has been for countless ages operating upon him 
and making him what he is." If he sees, there 
must be "light." If he hears, there must be 
vibrations that produce "sound." If he is capable 
of being impressed through any of the physical 
sense organs, then he is, and must have been, for 
long ages, touched by an objective reality outside 
of himself. In other terms, the "feeling" proves 
the existence of a corresponding objective reality. 
4 'Men know nothing and can know nothing of 
what does not touch them." 

Now, if this be true in regard to man's physical 
nature, have we not here a glimpse of the laws 
that result in the origin and evolution of his spir- 
itual nature? Do not the physical and spiritual 
laws run in parallel lines ? Are they not, rather, 
one law ? Were there no real spiritual objective 
forces, is it reasonable, in the light of physical laws 
even, to suppose that man would have developed 
any spiritual apprehension of Deity, of spiritual 
things, of immortality? No one who at all care- 
fully investigates the history of the evolution of 
man's physical and spiritual natures can, it seems 
to me, fail to see that the history of each runs 
along perfectly parallel lines. Environing reali- 



58 The Evolution of Immortality 

ties, outside of him, so act and react upon him as 
to awaken sensation, and sensation finally results 
in a consciousness of the objective realities. It is 
true that we may "feel" without possessing a 
knowledge of what produces the feeling. But 
the fact nevertheless remains, "that for every 
essential fact in man's nature (both physical and 
spiritual) we have a corresponding creative fact 
or force in his environment." We may hear 
without understanding all the intricacies of wave 
currents or vibratory motion. But we could not 
hear did not wave currents exist as an objective 
reality. The same is true of seeing, smelling, 
tasting and feeling ; and each sense has a corre- 
sponding reality of environment adequate to its 
development; and the development of these sense 
possibilities of the embryo clearly reveals "the 
nature of the forces that act upon it." 

Admitting this to be a universal law of organic 
and sense development, it necessarily follows that 
the almost universal sense of aspiration for, and 
confidence in, the realities of a continued spiritual 
existence beyond the realm of physical limitations, 
"has come into existence as the correlate of cer- 
tain spiritual realities, and that it has been made 
to be what it is, rather than something different, 
by the facts of environment." That is, our spir- 
itual sense is as really the result of spiritual 
objective realities that environ us, as is the sense 
of sight the result of the objective reality of the 
sun. Thus, in the light of science, the "feeling" 



Of a Co?isciousness of Limitations 



or subjective consciousness, may be cited as rea- 
sonable proof of the existence of an objective 
reality that is the counterpart of such feeling or 
consciousness. The office of physical sense organs 
in man is to reveal to the ego the relation it sus- 
tains to the material universe. They are "the 
eyes of the soul as it looks earthward upon the 
phenomena of nature " ; and they have no relation 
with things external to his physical nature. They 
all pertain to the organism that soon or late breaks 
up and disappears from the realm of sense. They 
are of the external alone, the cerebro-spinal 
system of nerves that " knows nothing but what 
it collects to itself from the outside." Not so with 
the spiritual system of senses. It, like the gangli- 
onic nervous, " has its meaning entirely within 
itself." It reveals to the ego — the selfhood of 
man, — its relation to the immaterial. This point 
might be elaborated to an indefinite extent; but I 
have said enough to make it sufficiently prominent 
in this connection. I wish to recall, however, 
right here, Professor Du Bois' definition of 
science : " The verification of the ideal in nature." 
It certainly has to be considered with facts and 
their relations, which is science. 

Of a Consciousness of Limitations 

I shall refer to only one other significant fact 
connected with our embryonic history; but it is 



60 The Evolution of Immo?'tality 



one that, to me, seems immensely suggestive if 
taken in connection with its counterpart in our 
present stage of being. I allude to what may be 
called a consciousness of limitations on the part 
of the embryo during the latter stages of its 
embryonic existence. I need not enter into details 
to define what is here meant. Those who have 
given the subject of embryology any study, or 
even a little thought, must know to what phe- 
nomena reference is made. The peeping of a 
chick, for instance, together with the greater or 
less exercise of other newly found organs or 
members, for days prior to the rupture of its shell, 
and the passage out of its restricted and confining 
environment into this new and infinitely larger 
world which surrounded and included the old, has 
its counterpart in all embryological life, and espe- 
cially so of the human race. What is this if it be 
not the sure evidence of an awakening conscious- 
ness of the possession of powers and capabilities 
that require a freer range and scope than the 
limitations of environment render possible ? We 
now know, as the result of a larger measure of 
apprehension of the totality of things, that this 
consciousness of limitations, manifested by the 
embryo, is but the merest suggestion of the reality 
that awaits it when it shall emerge from the old 
body, that can no longer contribute to the evolu- 
tion of the inherent powers and forces that consti- 
tute its life, the real personality from the beginning. 
This embryonic consciousness of limitation has 



Of a Consciousness of Limitations 61 

its counterpart, I claim, in our present stage of 
being. Emerson's quiet reply to the Second 
Adventist : " Well, suppose the world does come to 
an end; it would not trouble me any. I think I 
can get on without it," is the same consciousness 
— in kind — as the peep of an unborn chick. The 
difference is simply one of degree. Both are 
frophetic of that which is to be. 

If it be claimed that this is not consciousness, in 
any true sense of the term, because we have no 
memory of our embryonic state, the reply may be 
made, that consciousness is something else than 
mere mechanical memory. Who can remember 
anything of his first year of physical existence? 
What, it may be asked, is the difference between 
the consciousness of a child a week before birth 
and a week after birth? or, even, six months 
before and six months after birth? Conscious- 
ness, like everything else, is a matter of growth, 
of evolution. Who of us can tell when it began 
in his own case? Who is ready to say that he is 
as conscious as he ever will be ; that his conscious- 
ness is not to continue to grow and unfold end- 
lessly? If the term " embryonic instinct " should 
suit any possible critic better than embryonic 
consciousness, I would ask: What is instinct if 
it be not slumbering memories, or an unawakened 
consciousness that comes down to us as the result 
of an inheritance out of all the life that has been 
lived before us, to which no age, no human being, 
has failed to add his contribution. 



62 



The Evolution of Immortality 



"Our finest hope is finest memory." 

Up to the point of physical birth the results of 
all this experience and life of the ages before us 
lie slumbering in that state we term "instinct"; 
or, rather, before birth, it does not emerge above 
it But at birth our inheritance begins to crystal- 
lize into consciousness and self-determining power,, 
a point from whence an individual immortality 
becomes possible, if not indeed inevitable. If the 
Eternal Source of phenomena is the same "which 
in ourselves wells up under the form of conscious- 
ness," we surely have arrived at a point in our 
unfoldment when we possess that which is, in its 
very nature, immortal. Consciousness, then, is 
" a graduated scale without a zero, having no 
starting-point from which a reckoning can be 
made," unless we say that it was potential in the 
absolute beginning of our existence, and is the 
fruition of all that has preceded our present 
stage of being. As the rose is potential in the 
germ, so self-consciousness and the spiritual 
nature of man must be the result of an unfold- 
ment of that which, from the first, was inherently 
and potentially pi-esent. If a great past precedes 
its present state, then, according to the laws of 
evolution and continuity, a great future is before 
it, toward which it ever reaches forth, and actively 
and unceasingly proceeds. The consciousness of 
the temporal nature of this stage of our existence 
prompts and impels an effort to subordinate the 



Of a Co?zsciousness of Limitations 



physical to the mental and spiritual, and keeps 
prominently before the mind the fact that the 
realities of life, in a relative sense at least, lie 
beyond the physical. 

Rightly and broadly viewed, both physically 
and metaphysically, this consciousness of limita- 
tions is a sure and sufficient evidence of an ulti- 
mate broader and deeper realization of life beyond 
this stage of our existence. It is more than the 
first faint flush of the morning that precedes each 
new day. In embryonic life any marked mani- 
festations of a consciousness of limitations do not 
appear until the later stages of that life. The 
same is true in this stage also, to a greater or less 
extent. In childhood, youth and early maturity 
life's vital forces find full play in perfecting the 
material organism and preparing it to perform its 
full function as an organism. At these various 
stages the consciousness of limitations relates to an 
undeveloped physical organism. We look for- 
ward to the time when we may hope to possess 
better developed bodies, brains, etc., through and 
by which to realize our ideals, and give expression 
to the true inner life that continually asserts itself, 
and cries for more room and a larger scope and 
range of activities. But as we pass physical 
maturity, and the evening twilight of this stage of 
life sets in, " Nature relaxes the bonds and press- 
ure of vitality, in order to reconcile her children 
to the prospects of the coming change." We 
then begin to realize that a slight approximation 



The Evolution of Immortality 



even toward a full realization of life's highest 
ideals — ideals that in our best moments seem 
native to our inner being — implies a continued 
life, a more perfect organism, a state of being 
freed from many things that now seem to be, in a 
very decided sense, limitations. 

If we may reasonably conclude that this sense 
of physical limitations, of which we are so often 
conscious, is but the magnified counterpart of a 
like consciousness that is characteristic of the later 
stages of all embryological existence, we may as 
reasonably believe that it is now, in our own case, 
no less prophetic of future realities; that it, also, 
is but the merest suggestion of the nature and 
scope of possibilities and unfoldment that, in due 
time, await us. That our present embryonic 
spiritual being shall, also, when the physical can 
no longer serve it, or longer be conducive to its 
development, pass out from physical restrictions 
— whose domination now hampers its free scope 
and range of inherent possibilities — endowed with 
an organism better suited to its new environment 
and more commensurate with an unfolding of its 
divine nature and essence. 

Ay, what shall be 

" When eternity affirms the conception of an hour"? 

The fact that we cannot now apprehend or 
know IS) of itself, "an immense promise of coming 
enlightenment." We may rest assured, however, 
that "the things not seen are eternal." But 



Conclusion 



6 S 



because they are now unseen they need not be 
called supernatural. The spiritual must be the 
fruition or flowering of the physical, not only real 
but substantial to adequate perceptions. And so 
we may wisely and confidently exclaim, with the 
poet: 

" He that hath led me hither 
Will lead me hence." 



Conclusion 

Finally, from this standpoint, we are not to 
suppose that, as we pass on to the next stage of 
progressive existence, we have reached the ulti- 
matum. If, standing here and looking back, with 
all the aids at our command, along the line from 
whence we came, we fail to discover the beginning 
or the successive stages through which we have 
already passed; so, in looking forward, we also 
fail to catch a glimpse even of the end. The 
spiritual body being, however, a unit organism, 
composed of matter — a mode of motion — it also 
must be changeful, in form and combination, in 
accordance with laws pertaining to matter. 
Should it be composed of the elements of univer- 
sal ether, or should the external organism that 
our life-principle, or spirit, is to inhabit in the next 
stage be composed of a higher or finer quality, 
arrangement or mode of motion of matter than 
that of which our present bodies are composed, it 



66 The Evolution of Immortality 



would pass, simply, under higher and more com- 
plex laws than any that we now know as pertain- 
ing to the grosser forms of substance; and it would 
carry with itself the adequate senses of perception 
of objective realities external to itself. "Birth 
gave to each of us much." Why then may we 
not reasonably assume that " Death may give us 
very much more, in the way of subtler senses to 
behold colors we cannot here see, to catch sounds 
we do not now hear, and to be aware of bodies 
and objects impalpable at present to us, but per- 
fectly real, intelligibly constructed, and constitute 
ing an organized society and a governed, multi- 
formed state." 

That inspired writer and thinker of deep in- 
sight, Edwin Arnold, has recently written that 
which so well harmonizes with the foregoing, 
and which would so aptly close this little volume, 
that I cannot resist the temptation to quote. He 
says: " Where does nature show signs of break- 
ing off her magic, that she should stop at the five 
organs and the sixty odd elements? Are we free 
to spread over the face of this little earth, and 
never freed to spread through the solar system 
and beyond it? Nay, the heavenly bodies are to 
the ether which contains them as mere spores of 
sea-weed floating in the ocean. Are the specks 
only filled with life and not the space? What 
does nature possess more valuable in all she has 
wrought here than the wisdom of the sage, the 
tenderness of the mother, the devotion of the 



Conclusion 



6 7 



lover and the opulent imagination of the poet, 
that she should let these priceless things be utterly- 
lost by a quinsy or a flux? It is a hundred times 
more reasonable to believe that she commences 
-afresh with such delicately developed treasures, 
making them the groundwork and stuff for splen- 
did further living by the process of death which, 
«ven when it seems accidental or premature, is 
probably as natural and gentle as birth; and 
wherefrom, it may well be, the new-born dead 
arises to find a fresh world ready for his pleasant 
and novel body, with gracious and willing kindred 
ministrations awaiting it, like those which pro- 
vided for the human babe the guarding arms and 
nourishing breasts of its mother. As the babe's 
eyes opened to strange sunlight here, so may the 
eyes of the dead lift glad and surprised lids to 4 a 
light that never was on sea or land'; and so may 
bis delighted ears hear speech and music proper 
to the spheres beyond, while he laughs content- 
edly to find how touch and taste and smell had 
all been forecasts of faculties accurately following 
upon the lowly lessons of this earthly nursery ! It 
is really just as easy and logical to think such will 
be the outcome of the * life which now is,' as to 
terrify weak souls into wickedness by mediaeval 
hells, or to wither the bright instincts of youth or 
love with horizons of black annihilation. 

"Moreover those new materials and surround- 
ings of the farther being would bring a more intense 
and verified as well as a higher existence. Man 



68 The Evolution of Immortality 



is less superior to the sensitive plant now than his 
re-embodied spirit would probably then be to his 
present personality. Nor does anything except 
ignorance and despondency forbid the belief that 
the senses so etherialized and enhanced, and so 
fitly adapted to the fine combinations of advanced 
entity, would discover without much amazement 
sweet and friendly societies springing from, but 
proportionately upraised above, the old associa- 
tions; art divinely elevated; science splendidly 
expanding ; bygone loves and sympathies explain- 
ing and obtaining their purpose ; activities set free 
for vaster cosmic service; abandoned hopes real- 
ized at last; despaired-of joys come magically 
within ready reach; regrets and repentances soft- 
ened by wider knowledge, surer foresight, and 
the discovery that though in this universe nothing 
can be * forgiven,' everything may be repaid and 
repaired. In such a stage, though little removed 
relatively from this, the widening of faith, delight 
and love (and therefore of virtue which depends 
on these) would be very large. Everywhere 
would be discerned the fact, if not the full mys- 
tery, of continuity, of evolution, and of the never 
ending progress in all that lives towards beauty, 
happiness and use without limit. To call such a 
life ' Heaven' or the 4 Hereafter,' is a concession 
to the illusions of speech and thought, for these 
words imply locality and time, which are but 
provisional conceptions. It would rather be a 
state, a plane of faculties, to expand again into 



Conclusion 



6 9 



other and higher states or planes/ the slowest 
and the lowest in the race of life coming in last, 
but each — everywhere — finally attaining. After 
all, as Shakespeare so merrily hints, 6 That that 
is, is!' and when we look into the blue of the sky 
we actually see visible Infinity. When we regard 
the stars of midnight we veritably perceive the 
mansions of nature, countless and illimitable; so 
that even our narrow senses reprove our timid 
minds. 

" If such shadows of the future be ever so faintly 
cast from real existences, fear and care might, at 
one word, pass from the minds of men, as evil 
dreams depart from little children waking to their 
mother's kiss; and all might feel how subtly wise 
the poet was who wrote of that first mysterious 
night on earth, which showed the unexpected 
stars: when — 

" * Hesperus, with the hosts of heaven came, * 
And lo, Creation widened on man's view! 

Who could have thought such marvels lay concealed 
Within thy beams, O Sun? or who could find — 

Whilst flower and leaf and insect stood revealed — 
That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind? 

Why do we, then, shun Death with anxious strife? 

If Light can thus deceive, -wherefore not Life? ' " 



